


Pandora

by orphan_account



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 08:04:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4698470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rick and Summer go on an adventure together. </p><p>An exploration of how the revelation of Rixty Minutes has affected Summer and the consequences it has to her relationship with Rick. Also, they visit a sex planet, so there's that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pandora

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after "Auto Erotic Asphyxiation".
> 
> Makes explicit reference to events that occurred between episodes "Rick Potion #9" to "Auto Erotic Assimilation".

Rick barely makes it through the garage door before hearing the cacophony of footfalls down the stair well. He rolls his eyes, taking a sip from his flask. Ever since the time freeze his grandkids had become nigh impossible to shake. Like screeching Rholarians they were somehow always underfoot, Morty’s familiar enthusiasm now flanked by a competitive Summer. 

 

The addition sets him on edge. Simply said, Rick knows Morty. He has his moralistic, naive, desperate for approval and attention schtick cased. Whether or not Morty realizes it, Rick can predict his actions pretty well by now, it makes him easy to manage. An excellent quality in a sidekick and one glaringly absent in Summer.

 

Aloof and disinterested since Rick's return, Summer hadn’t elicited much feeling beyond the occasional contemplation when he got too deep into the bottle. Since she didn’t affect his work, he hadn’t particularly care about her activities until recently. He’d been perfectly content to chalk up her distance to whatever socially driven bullshit teenage girls were forced to endure these days. 

 

Except Summer noticed things. Whether it was the frequency of Rick and Morty’s nightly escapades, Beth’s tendency to over salt dinner when she and Jerry had fought, or when the liquor cabinet had been artfully rearranged by Rick on a bad night, she’d catalogue in her mind. It might not be something she talked about, or even brought up, but she’d file things away and Rick noticed.

 

Morty was a constant, but Summer was a variable. If she was gifted or jaded, in a purely scientific sense, he’d like to know.

 

Morty makes it through the door first, his sock feet skidding to a stop, “Oh hey Rick, are you going somewhere? I could come with you, you know, if you need any help or anything.” His breathlessness undercuts any attempt at playing it cool, his right hand grabbing left bicep instinctively as he looks up from the ground.

 

“Or you could take me.” Summer says, doing a better show of composing herself after the footrace, one hand held up to examine her freshly painted nails. Satisfied she shakes her fingers to dry. “It’s not like you if you _always_ take Morty or anything.” She adds, her eyes flickering up to Rick’s, challenging him to disagree with her.

 

“Not very subtle, Summer, I don’t really do guilt.” Rick turns to his desk, scanning through his journals, he knows there’s something he’s supposed to do tonight, but he can’t for the life of him remember. He flips through the battered book, squinting at his own chicken scratch writing, black ink blurred and bloated with whatever he’s spilled on the pages. 

”Lemme see… you’re in luck I gotta check up on one of caches before the planet goes belly-up, business and shit.”

 

He glances up at his grandchildren’s expectant faces, before jerking a thumb towards the ship.

 

“Summer, get in. S-Sorry Morty, this one isn’t for you, no offence- or anything, it’s just I-I-I think Summer’s better suited s’all. Don’t wait up,” Rick says, catching the smug look Summer shoots Morty before whipping around to the spaceship door.

 

Now’s as good a night as ever to figure her out.

 

________________________

 

Summer can barely suppress her grin as she stares outward into endless inky blackness of space, nebulas erupting in deep violets, bright pinks and electric blues. Rick bristles beside her, says something about her being easily impressed, that Morty at least had the sense to stay in his seat, but she ignores him.

 

Morty’s seen the stars a million times, there’s no way Summer isn’t going to take full advantage now that it was her turn. When her hunger for the infinite has been somewhat slaked she asks the question that’s been eating at her since they left the garage. There had been a tiny irritating moth of hesitation fluttering at the bright light of her excitement. 

 

“So is there a real reason why Morty couldn’t come or were you just trying to make a show of not playing favourites?” Her voice sounds louder inside the ship, surer.

 

Rick cocks an eyebrow. He doesn’t like being questioned and more to the point he doesn’t entertain questioning, the occasional moral outburst from Morty notwithstanding. Jesus, they’re barely out of the galaxy she’s already on his case, he reaches into his lab coat, taking a nip of scotch. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to look a g-gift horse in the mouth, _Summer_. Y-you ever think maybe I wanted you to come?”

 

Summer leans back into the seat, eyes closing as she props her feet up on the dash, legs crossed. “I’m not an idiot, Grandpa Rick.” It isn’t a condemnation, merely an assertion. 

 

Glancing over at her, Rick can’t help but notice the alarmingly familiar figure she cuts, like a dirty advertisement he’d seen a few years back, a Nilyssen escort sprawled out on a sitting couch. The wide curve of hip and the gentle swell of breasts. Save for the lack of scales and abundance of clothing Summer could be a dead ringer. 

 

“Yeah, feel free to chime in whenever.” Rick can almost hear the invisible bubblegum snap, except for he’s never seen Summer pop bubblegum before and the association feels forced.

 

Rick doesn’t appreciate the inquisition, as far as he’s concerned, both grandkids should be happy he takes their bratty asses anywhere, period. And yet, there were considerations as to the night’s decision, and he’ll need to explain himself to Summer at some point. He may as well explain sooner rather than later…

 

He hadn’t ventured back to the ochre red planet since he’d stashed what would be considered by intergalactic standards as a metric fuckton of illegal merchandise. Sandiran bootlegs of Ghoshi pornos, anti-matter guns (all unlicensed and unmarked for the discretionary buyer), and the vials and bags of Rick’s own recipe controlled substances there was enough to buy him few consecutive lifetimes in the “not a fucking joke” high security prison.

 

When he’d half-crash landed on the planet he hadn’t known his good fortune.

 

He clears his throat. “If I remember correctly, which I’m pretty sure I do, where we’re going the atmosphere is a little…” he makes a vague gesture with his hand, “hormonal.” 

 

“What do you mean hormonal?” Summer’s says, arching a dubious eyebrow.

 

“Hormonal as in the pursuing feds barely made it three steps past their spaceships before they dropped trou and began- started fucking each other’s brains out.” Rick gesticulates wildly, making obscene gestures, “Didn’t even give a damn that I was standing r-right there or anything, Summer, it was like I didn’t even exist.” 

 

“Wow,” Summer says, her half smile betraying her amusement.

 

Rick chuckles to himself, “Turns out if you haven’t gotten any lately, breathing the air is the equivalent of mainlining MDMA.”  

 

Summer laughs, “God, that sounds like an episode of Star Trek or something.” 

 

Rick shrugs his shoulders, fingers drumming on the steering wheel, still grinning at the absurd memory, “Yeah, well, that’s the infinite nature of time and space for you. It was practically a scientific certainty that at least some shitty tropes from sixties science fiction were going to land somewhere. T-too bad I didn’t get Orion Slave girls.”

 

“Yeah…that’s a real bummer, Rick.” She shakes her head at his chauvinism, before processing his last statement fully. An involuntary flush creeps up Summer’s neck, “Wait, so you brought me because-“

 

“Contrary to popular belief, Summer, houses built in the late eighties weren’t too concerned with _soundproofing._ Christ, I could hear you two rutting from the kitchen table,” he paused, recalling venturing in from the garage to refill his flask when he heard the first punched out gasp, and then another, it took a split second for him to realize what was happening, “L-look I don’t wanna tell you how to live your life or anything, Summer, but that was, like, insanely fast, y-you could definitely do better.”

 

Summer sighs, the way she does under her breath when Jerry confiscates her cell phone at dinner, annoyed and a little theatrically. 

 

“Trust me, I’m perfectly aware,” she says. One hand reaches to twirl the feathery tip of her ponytail between her fingers absentmindedly. She doesn’t notice the glance he shoots her. He wonders, as admittedly he has done in the past, if Needful ever got anywhere with Summer. It’s not as if he’s ever seen any other men around her. 

 

Though it wasn’t as if Summer didn’t have her girl friends over every other weekend. Now that would be something he’d like to know.

 

“Yeah I bet,” Rick says noncommittally, rearranging his long legs, leaning against the window.

 

He wasn’t going to stoop to asking about Summer’s love life, but they still had the better part of an hour left in transit and if he spent some of his time thinking about it, well that would be different.

 

____________________________

 

 

The planet doesn’t look like it’s in the midst of its final days, but Rick knows they seldom ever do. Wanton chaos and destruction is the rule of the galaxy, so as a precaution he doesn’t hold on too tight to anything lest it give way or disappear beneath his feet. Stepping out of the spaceship, he familiar tingle of hormones stream through his system.

 

Ochre dust sweeps up, warm and soothing against his legs. Nothing but gently undulating hills as far as the eye can see. The conditions never made the planet a popular place for settlement, too chemically unstable.For once he doesn’t have to deal with the natives. It’s a relief he didn’t know he wanted. 

 

Rick takes a deep breath, embracing the deceptive tranquility of his surroundings, they would at most have twelve hours before things got sticky. 

 

He glances over at Summer, her hair blowing softly in the wind, her pupils dilated. She must feel it too, though she doesn’t comment on the undoubted warmth flooding her body, the heightened senses. She just follows him into the shallow cavern beneath one of the dunes he’d managed to bury his hoard in before taking off for twenty plus years.

 

Slightly smaller the garage, the cave yawns open lazily, offering shade against the planet’s two small suns.

 

She regards broad cavern floor with disbelief, arms crossing in front of her bust, “Wait, so you actually buried stuff here? It’s a little Walter White, don’t you think?”

 

Rick rolls his eyes, “Yeah, because it’s not like the practice of burying illegal merchandise predated your critically acclaimed drama by several centuries,” he says, voice dripping with sarcasm. Retrieving a shovel from the ship, he tosses it over to her. “Get digging, Summer.”

 

She snatches the shovel out of the air easily, but she doesn’t follow orders. She places a hand on her hip, the other plunging the shovel into the ground, her brow furrowing. It’s a look of petulance he’s familiar with. “And where’s your shovel?”

 

“You’re holding it.” Rick takes a swig from his flask, leaning up against the open mouth of cavern and sliding to the ground, “And before you s-start in with that sour look on your face, you can remember that you wanted to come adventuring with grandpa, and them’s the brakes.” It’s not as if he wouldn’t have had Morty doing the exact same thing anyway, besides, he knew for a fact that Summer was a lot stronger than she’d let on.

 

Summer stares at him for a moment looks as if she’s going to say something, but she bites her tongue.

 

Rick closes, his eyes, enjoying the heat from the suns and listens to the pleasant sounds of shovel plunging deep into the fine grit of the ground, rocks pinging off the metallic blade. It’s almost soothing. He drinks deeper from his flash, scotch burning sweetly down his throat, and nestles into a comfortable drunk.

 

After about an hour, Summer breaks the silence.

 

“So, like, are you okay?”

 

Rick opens his eyes, glancing over at her. She’s made decent progress, a sizeable pile of rust red dirt behind her, a neat excavation in front. Brushing the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand, she stands up straight, waiting for an answer. Her expression is one oftimid concern.

 

“I could go for more scotch,” he answers blithely, shaking his nearly empty flask at Summer as if she were a waitress at a tropical resort.

 

She frowns, “I’m being serious.”

 

Rick shrugs, planting his flash in the sand, “Yeah, so am I.”

 

Summer means well, but she’s poking around at things better left alone. Rick isn’t interested in good intentions, sympathetic nods, or any of the lofty ambitions of the feminine healer and he really isn’t feeling charitable at the moment.

 

“Whatever. I’m just saying break ups suck and if you want to talk about it…“

 

He interrupts her with sharp, mocking laughter. 

 

“Talk about it? With who, you? And I guess afterwards we could paint each other’s nails, or-or-or listen to One Direction and talk about how just maybe in another universe they’re still together. How does that sound, Summer? Or maybe I’ll pass on that tantalizing offer because you have literally existed for a fraction of my lifetime and don’t know shit about anything that actually matters.”

 

Rick knows that he’s being poisonous, feels his own toxicity comes seeping outward, thick and pervasive. It’s not as if he asked for the whole family life, the crushing weight of dependence on top of all of the other shit he has to deal with.

 

“Christ, h-how bad off do you think I am to be to be asking a teenager for some kind of emotional guidance?” He mutters. 

 

Summer stares back at him hard, her face red, as her body quivers with anger. To her credit, she doesn’t cry, not like Morty undoubtedly would have. They were similar to be sure, he’d done the math for fuck’s sakes, but the differences in temperament could fill the phonebook. Morty’s feeling stayed close to the surface, he bruised easily but he could be won back. Rick knew how much slack Morty afforded him, at what point the rope would snap and so would Morty’s willingness to forgive, to accept Rick for who he was and what he did.

 

He doesn’t know Summer that way.

 

“You know what, Rick? If you don’t want to talk about it that’s all you had to say.” Summer’svoice is even, her gaze unwavering. Without waiting for his response, she turns back to digging. Forcing the shovel deeper into the ground with her foot and sweeping away the debris with one fluid movement. 

 

The sound of the shovel is no longer pleasant.

 

Rick closes his eyes. He’s well versed in the cloud of tension that falls around them, though he hasn’t been back to the old house in over a decade. Most people faltered under the silent treatment, were easily manipulated into either returning to the fight with renewed anger or apologizing for their transgressions. Rick didn’t do either of those things, instead he’d petulantly ride out the silent treatment as long as it was enforced.

 

Two people can play the quiet game.

 

Fifteen minutes passes by, the thirty. The silence stretches imperceptibly on.

 

Ugh, he really could do with more scotch. Surveying Summer he decides, blearily, that she isn’t digging fast enough. At least that’s the tenuous reason he’ll use to justify approaching her .He really doesn’t remember digging that deep, but it’s been years since so who knows.

 

Rick picks himself up off the ground, brushing the faded red dust from his lab coat before making his way over to Summer. She’s digging intently, pointedly ignoring Rick’s approach. He watches her for a moment, the smooth movements of coordinated muscle, the gentle curves of sweat tracing their ways downward along her skin.

 

“Give me the shovel, Summer. It’s m-my turn.” He extends an expectant hand. As it stands, it’s not a very good peace offering, but Rick doesn’t apologize so it’s the best he has in his arsenal.

 

“No,” She says, neither looking up at him or breaking from her task.

 

“ _Summer_ ,” he warns.

 

She throws the shovel down into the excavation, rounding back on him, “What?” Her face is livid, her anger awakening something unsettling low in his gut, “I’m digging, that’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

 

Rick is in no mood to entertain teenage hysterics. “What I want is for you to stop being a self absorbed, little bitch and get over it. I hurt your feelings, so what? P-people aren’t always going to be nice to you just because you’re a hot girl, Summer. Welcome to reality.”

 

“‘ _People aren’t always going to be nice to you?’_ ” Summer shouts, “That’s all you’ve got to say? Didn’t you hear I ruined my parents lives? That in their happiest realities I don’t even exist anymore. My own little brother thinks I’m a bitch,” She crowds him, jamming an accusing finger into his chest, “And you…You literally left me on a planet overridden with mutated monsters to _die._ I bet you didn’t think Morty would tell me about that, huh? By all means, please let me know when people _start_ being nice to me, you condescending dick. _”_

 

She glares up at him, all coiled fury. Rick is transfixed. 

 

He isn’t thinking when he leans down and kisses her hard. She makes a muffled noise of surprise, her mouth slack for a moment before moving against his. His brain practically short circuits when she begins kissing him back. Her fingers snagging the edges of his lab coat as the kiss deepens.

 

It’s not like kissing Unity or his dead wife or any of the lovers in between, there’s an adolescent urgency that teases and tortures. It’s completely irredeemable, but Summer wants him for a moment and her affection blinds like moonshine. Her mouth a ripe cool spring still he can’t help but drink from. For a kiss that shouldn’t be happening, it goes on for far too long.

 

“Oh _fuck_ ,” he says gracelessly after they break apart.

 

Summer’s cheeks are glowing pink, her lips more swollen than before. He steps back unsure, quickly pulling her hands away from his lab coat. This isn’t a decision he can distance himself from. Neither the atmosphere or the conditions absolve him. He knows scientifically speaking he’s the more or less the same man as he was before they landed. 

 

_“I’m not that kind of guy, Morty.”_

 

Rick was the worst kind of liar.

 

Summer recovers faster than he does, breathing hard. Her fingers instinctively reach up to touch her lips, before looking back at him stunned. Following his retreat, she closes the distance, bracing her hands against his chest, fingers splayed wide. “It’s okay,” she says finally, nodding slightly to herself as though she’s given thought to this before, “it’s not so bad when you think about it, it’s not like you’re my Rick or anything.”

 

She looks up at him, her voice strengthening with firm resolution, “You’re somebody else.” 

 

They always did say the devil is in the details, Rick thinks darkly, brushing the damp strands of hair that had fallen out from Summer’s ponytail away from her face. He should be stopping her, somewhere between inviting his teenage granddaughter to a veritable sex planet and kissing her he should have started kicking up for air. Maybe he would have if he didn’t like drowning so much.

 

“Jesus, baby, I get denial and all but that’s a leap,” he says, all the while moving his hands to her narrow waist. Rick can’t begrudge her rationalizations. They’re the only coping mechanisms a person has until they have to start drinking, injecting, or fucking themselves free of a nagging mind. Everybody needs to be able to sleep some time. 

 

Rick’s knows he’s saying the right things, but doing the wrong ones. His contradictory nature doesn’t escape him. Summer feels hot in his hands.

 

She pulls away, voice serious, “Except it’s not. My grandpa’s dead and somewhere in some other universe, so am I. That’s just how it is.” It’s the second time Summer uses a first person description for another universe’s Summer and it should have set off alarms in Rick’s mind, but he’s interest stays with her perverted logic.

 

“If we do this, it’s b-because you want it, Summer. You say no or stop- whatever, at any point and I back off.” Rick murmurs into her ear. It’s testament to his shitty self control that he can’t help himself, that Summer holds the reins in this exchange when he should know better.

 

“Yeah,” she nods breathily, “yeah, of course.”

 

She doesn’t stop him and what’s more he doesn’t stop himself.

____________

 

“I don’t think your stuff’s there anymore. Unless it’s way deeper,” Summer says finally, glancing over at the hole in the cave. Rick grunts his assent, and also looks over, though more at Summer than at her work. Naked and lying across Rick’s lab coat, she conjures up more than a few memories from Rick’s past. She seems unfazed, high colour still flushing her cheeks.

 

Rick shakes his head, leaning over her to grab his shirt before sitting up to put it on, “Someone must have gotten here first. Little bastards.” It’s not a huge loss, Rick has caches everywhere from his more active days, in-between his earth sabbaticals. Tomorrow night he and Morty could easily go and retrieve enough merchandise to keep him flooded with flurbos and every other planetary currency.

 

“We should probably get going, I guess,” Summer says, snagging her capris from her careful pile of clothing, “It’s probably close to morning at home.”

 

Actually the passage of time is a little skewed in this quadrant of the galaxy, but he doesn’t bother to correct her. Dressing quickly, he feigns casual lustful interest while watching her intently for signs of distress, regret, but she merely gets dressed, carefully swishing her deep ginger hair up into a high ponytail.

 

As far as she’s concerned, Rick’s still Rick but he’s also, empirically not her grandfather as if biological ties could be snipped so neatly by the lines of time and space. If Rick were a little less of a disaster himself when he was younger, he’d be concerned about the implications of Summer sleeping with men over twice her age, let alone himself. But he had been a disaster, so the thought doesn’t linger.

 

She catches him staring, “You okay?”

 

Rick doesn’t know what to say. He’s been the guy girls with daddy issues on speed dial, the five nights going on six of “bad decision”, the aloof and selfish boyfriend, the self destructive fuck buddy to get annihilated with, the perfect target for hate sex. A man his age with his intergalactic experience, he’s gotten around. He knows how to play the parts even if he doesn’t read from the scripts out of spite or indifference. 

 

There isn’t a script here for him to go off book from and there’s the additional troubling factor that he’s dealing with Summer, not exactly a stranger her can blow off.

 

He settles on just being himself, as though he could be anything different. “Y-yeah, baby, I’m good.” He answers cavalierly, and Summer half smiles at the moniker, shaking her head.

 

“Let’s go home.”

____________________

 

“Hey, Rick.” Summer’s voice breaks him out of the flow of driving. Rick looks away from the frankly absurd amount space debris littering their path and slows the ship. He has one hand slung over the wheel, the other resting comfortably on Summer’s thigh. Her smaller hand rests on top of his, her other propped underneath her chin. She looks contemplative, hesitant.

 

“Wh-what’s up? Something wrong.” He would move his hand if it wasn’t caught under hers. She takes a deep breath, before facing him.

 

“Promise you won’t leave me behind again, okay?” She says all at once, almost huffily, brows knit as though she’s anticipating blowback from him.

 

Rick almost starts in on how the adventuring thing is him and Morty’s thing, but he stops. Summer’s staring at him and it’s not even remotely about whether or not she gets taken along every other night into space or another dimension or whatever. She’s asking him, in as blustery and unrelentingly proudly as she can for him to save her.

 

The thought makes Rick feel cold that Summer feels like she has to ask, the fact that even that she has asked may not change anything. The universe is a chaotic and unpredictable place and Rick’s an agent of chaos himself, only Morty successfully tethering him to any kind of responsibility. He gives her the most reassuring smile he has.

 

“I promise, Summer.”

 

Rick is the worst kind of liar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Named Pandora after the myth of Pandora's Box. To "open Pandora's box" means to perform an action that may seem small or innocent, but that turns out to have severely detrimental and far-reaching consequences so basically how I interpreted Morty's (in some ways comforting and in other ways extremely unsettling) decision to tell Summer about the reality of his alternate timeline and the events of Rick Potion #9.
> 
> I don't know if planets can have two suns (I feel like they can't), but I wanted it to have two suns so whatever.
> 
> I really love Summer's character and I super hope I did an okay job of capturing her character, Rick is insanely hard to pin down in terms of morality and feelings and being a dick ninety-nine percent of the time, but damn it I did my best!
> 
> Comments super appreciated!


End file.
